Family Accuses Spirit Airlines FA Of Calling Them “Retarded Jews”

A Jewish couple has accused a Spirit Airlines flight attendant of anti-Semitic behavior onboard a flight from New York to Florida. Spirit says the couple did not follow the rules.

Chana and Yisroel Beck were flying from Newark to Ft. Lauderdale earlier this week on Spirit Airlines with their 6-week-old, two-year-old, and three-year-old.

It started with a baby stroller, which was FAA-approved for in-cabin use and OKed by the gate agent. But upon boarding, Chana claims the FAs immediately stopped her.

There is no way this is coming on. I don’t care who approved it at the gate. I’m the boss here and I’m going to decide if it comes on or no.

Alrighty then. I (now) know better than to argue with FAs onboard, but the Beck’s gave it a try. They transformed the stroller into a seat and showed the FAs that it was intended for use in-flight.

Nope. It wasn’t coming on.

Per the New York Post, another passenger heard one FA complaining to another about “those retarded Jews” before the plane took off. He was so horrified he came forward and offered to vouch for the Becks if asked later.

But that wasn’t all. Once the flight took off, Yisroel moved up to his wife and two children. He was holding their two-year-old.

A FA ordered him back to his seat, noting that there were not five oxygen masks in that row. Yisroel returned, but did not like the way the FA spoke to him and asked for his last name. The FA, named José, answered by telling Yisorel to shut up.

Once the plane landed in Ft. Lauderdale, all passengers were asked to remain onboard. Two police officers and two Spirit supervisors boarded and escorted the family off. Apparently, the FAs had already written a report claiming the family did not follow instructions and were disruptive.

Chana claims one of the Spirit supervisors said their return ticket would be cancelled and they were banned from flying Spirit Airlines.

Spirit claims the Becks have not reached out to the airline yet. A spokesman did tell the Post:

Records indicate that this guest ignored flight and ground crew instructions multiple times, beginning with the boarding process and continuing through landing.

He also added:

Spirit Airlines does not tolerate any form of discrimination. We are extremely proud of the diversity of our team and strive to provide exceptional service to all of our Guests.

CONCLUSION

I’m not going to make any speculations about this, but I do not see why the eyewitness would make up a lie about what the FA said. Maybe the family did ignore crew instructions, maybe not. There are two sides. But nothing justifies insulting the family the way one FA did. There is no defense.

One footnote. I first saw this story on news.com.au with the following video:

Oh my goodness! What a hilarious video. At first I thought this was the female passenger above, since she is wearing a huge Star of David necklace, but this incident occurred several months earlier…

About Author

Matthew

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he
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I expect nothing better from Spirit airlines. You get what you pay for!

Despite the horrific treatment that this family endured, why do we care so much about the comment “those retarded Jews?” Jew is simply a descriptor and is not a racial epithet (of which there are many). Would it have been less controversial if the FA had said “that retarded family?” He was simply identifying who he was talking about. I do not see the antisemitism here, and there is no indication that a non-Jewish family would have been treated any better.

Matthew, I am noticing an increase in race-baiting and race-related issues on this blog. Please consider not covering these sensationalist non-issues. My patience for this crap is waning.

I agree. What does their religion have anything to with this? It seems like every time someone is wronged we automatically attribute the act to racism, sexism or anti-Semitism without any evidence. The remark was crude but do you really think the FA singled this family out because of their religion?

Wow, just wow. @Andy K you genuinely do not see a problem here or are you just a troll? First of all I think the very fact their (presumed) religion was mentioned at all makes it clear this was a racial insult. In addition, most people would agree nowadays that “Jew” rather than “Jewish” in that context is already a problematic descriptor. What the flight attendant said was unacceptable in any context but “those retarded Jews” is even worse than saying “those retarded Jewish people”, and more cleary a racist insult, although either one would have been unacceptable.

Finally “retarded” as a descriptor is in itself totally insulting and also unacceptable.

It’s your prerogative to skip articles you don’t like but I think this is newsworthy and interesting, and I am glad Matthew highlighted it. Interested to hear the full story as and when it comes out.

You don’t KNOW, if the comment was even really made.
Random people seeking attention jump in and offer to “back up your side”. This person only encouraged the nuisance family to continue their poor behavior.
If you bring a lap baby, for free, the baby sits on your lap. Period. Had they PAID for a seat, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

I think Spirit is a pretty good airline now, and their customer service has really improved, but it’s obvious the flight attendants are a bit disgruntled. I had a flight attendant on a flight back from Bogotá tell me that he would definitely jump out of the exit row door first, if we had an actual emergency.

That said, if the flight attendant actually made that comment, it’s totally unacceptable. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong.

Maybe flight attendants should wear body cameras. I have no idea what happened and neither do most of the readers, but as other commenters have said, there’s always two sides to every story. As crappy as Spirit Airlines is, many of their passengers are equally low class. It’s like a flying Walmart but in some ways even worse.

Doesn’t have a ring of truth about it. They didn’t lodge a complaint with the airline ( not even in response to being banned). The use of “retarded” sounds odd: nutty, creepy, weird, stupid would have been more likely…and credible, albeit inappropriate and unpleasant.
The Arline says that they were ‘difficult ‘ at every stage of the journey. That sounds more likely. Probably just more shysters looking for an angle/advantage.